Lanluma is Poised to Continue Reshaping the Landscape of Aesthetic Medicine

Introduction

Bums, tums and sagging skins - the eternal struggle of the 
modern world! An often unwanted, yet universal, phenomenon that accompanies the passage of time is skin ageing. As individuals grow older, the skin undergoes a series of structural and functional changes, resulting in the development of wrinkles, fine lines, and a loss of skin 
elasticity. These signs of ageing are often a source of concern for many, prompting a search for effective treatments to restore a more youthful appearance.

Whilst we are still waiting for an elixir of youth, like that created by Lisle Von Rhuman from the 1992 Hollywood Movie classic, Death Becomes Her, capable of turning back the hands of time on both our skin and body with a simple sip of a glowing levitating potion, there has been significant evolution of aesthetic medicine in recent years. This has led to a growing interest in non-surgical approaches to address various cosmetic concerns that were previously often only achievable by going under the knife, such as buttock augmentation, hip dip correction, and difficult to treat conditions such as cellulite.
Energy-based devices have shown promise in helping treat skin laxity and cellulite, although these do often come with a significant financial outlay for the clinic.

Step in LanLuma – offering transformative results in an array of aesthetic applications for both face and body! Beyond combating the signs of ageing such as skin laxity, LanLuma has also shown great outcomes in reducing the appearance of cellulite, skin laxity and enhancing the contours of the gluteal region, offering a holistic 
approach to dermatological care.

What is it?

LanLuma is a poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA), a biocompatible and biodegradable implant. When injected into the skin, it increases the volume of depressed areas, particularly corrects skin depressions. Over time, LanLuma gradually replaces lost volume and improves skin texture, making it an ideal choice for various aesthetic concerns. 

Due to the product’s principle ingredient (PLLA), Lanluma provides natural-looking results that appear gradually and last more than two years. Results will start to appear after 6 weeks and progressively improve over 9 months. It comes in two vial sizes, 40ml and 15ml.

The versatility of LanLuma is one of its key benefits – it can be used on the face, décolletage, neck, upper arms, hands, thighs, abdomen, buttocks, and areas of cellulite*. Results are not instant, but instead appear gradually after around week 6 once the collagen stimulation has kicked in.The stimulation of collagen production improves the skin and soft tissue quality, this results in much more natural-looking, lighter and springier result.In terms of safety, the main component of LanLuma, PLLA, has a well-established safety profile, having been used in the medical field for over 30 years. Adverse events are generally mild and transient. Common side effects include swelling, redness, and bruising at the injection site, which typically resolve within a few days. Proper injection technique and patient selection are crucial to minimising risks. Adverse events have an overall incidence of 0.19% (1 event every 526 vials).

Bums

One of the main areas in which LanLuma shines is in its application for buttock augmentation. We’re not talking about excessive BBLs from the 2010s era here, but more natural contouring and volume improvement – think J Lo curves rather than Kim K on the cover of Paper Magazine balancing a bottle of bubbly on her rather voluminous derrière.

For hip dips, strategic injections with LanLuma can provide a smoother transition between the hip bone and thigh, resulting in more aesthetically pleasing contours. When we consider the options for buttock contouring, we have previously been broadly limited to surgical intervention or HA based filler. Surgery can be costly, with recovery taking weeks, and at one point it was found to have the highest death rate of all cosmetic surgery procedures (1 in 3000), due to pulmonary fat emboli. These worryingly high risks resulted in the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) advising their members to cease surgical BBL procedures in 2018 until their Gluteal Fat Grafting guidelines were produced 4 years later in 2022.

LanLuma is injected into the subcutaneous fat layer, which has far less risk of penetrating major vessels, and particle size is smaller than that of HA (40-63 μm vs 300-500 μm).Recovery is far swifter too, with significantly more manageable aftercare (and therefore greater compliance), where the patient only needs to massage the area, and avoid vigorous exercise for a week. The procedure is also very well tolerated in terms of pain – I personally don’t perform any additional analgesia (eg tumescent infiltration) for buttock treatments as it generally is not required in my experience.

Cellulite

With cellulite, this is usually caused in females by a combination of the fibrous septae placing tension on the skin surface, and fat protruding through these septae, resulting in an uneven appearance of the skin in 85-98% of women [Janda, K; Tomikowska, A (2014). "Cellulite - causes, prevention, treatment". Annales Academiae Medicae Stetinensis. 60 (1): 29–38. PMID 25518090]. By breaking these septae via cannula subcision, and then placing a thin layer of LanLuma, skin 
quality is improved by a relaxing of tension, and collagen stimulation improving skin quality and thickness. This leads to a reduction in the visibility of cellulite dimples and smoother skin.

Skin Laxity

For crêpey/lax skin (for example, on the neck, upper arms, abdomen), by injecting LanLuma in a more dilute form, the product acts more as a collagen stimulator rather than volumiser, allowing for both results and longevity that far exceed alternatives such as skin boosters. This is 
particularly advantageous in areas such as necks and hands, where skin boosters alone are often insufficient on anything other than mildly dehydrated skin. Ageing hands often show prominent veins, wrinkles, and volume loss. LanLuma injections in the back of the hands can restore lost volume, improve skin texture, and reduce the visibility of veins and tendons*. The results are natural-looking, with rejuvenated, youthful hands. As the collagen stimulation lasts over 2 years, treatment is often a lot more sustainable/cost effective vs shorter lasting skin boosters. 

Conclusion

LanLuma is a dynamic tool in the realm of non-surgical aesthetics. Its collagen stimulating properties enable it to address a wide range of aesthetic concerns, including hip dip correction, buttocks enhancement, appearance of cellulite, skin rejuvenation for the hands and neck. With its impressive versatility and safety profile, LanLuma is poised to continue reshaping the landscape of aesthetic medicine (as well as patient’s buttocks!), offering natural-looking and lasting enhancements with minimal downtime or invasiveness.In the words of Lisle Von Rhuman: it’s “a touch of magic in a world obsessed with science”